Harrison said: “I’m coming to the end, but I want to go out on a high. In terms of my style and team, I’ve done a lot of ­reprogramming and I just want to give it one more shot.

“I’ve lost two fights – two big fights – recently against David Price and Deontay Wilder, and if you include David Haye it is three since 2010. So most ­people think that I’m done.

“I lost my way for quite a while and that passion for ­boxing. But that’s back now and I want to close the show on my own terms with a performance that I’m proud of.

“Win, lose or draw, I’d like to go out with valour and do myself justice.”

If Harrison loses his comeback, which he hopes will be in March, then he insists he WILL hang up his gloves for good – ­although he ­admits a victory would leave him with an interesting dilemma over whether or not to carry on.

Either way, he knows he is ­approaching the end of a ­rollercoaster career.

But after a heart-to-heart with transgender female Kellie Maloney – who, as Frank Maloney, was one of his ­promoters – in the Celebrity Big Brother house, he said he has found ­inner-peace.

“Kellie used to say to me, ‘Audley, you would be ­heavyweight champ if you had ­confidence, but you just don’t have any’. And I used to say, ‘Well, you were the guy who messed me up – you and Frank Warren – ­fighting the system all the time’.

“I spoke a lot about the past to ­everyone in the house, although it didn’t get shown on TV much. Everybody got to hear how I built my empire and it all came ­tumbling down in 2004.

“But meeting Kellie in there and having the heart-to-heart with her and having her corroborate my story, it felt like I’d kind of gone full circle.

“I was playing a bit of poker and there was the whole BBC thing, losing my deal, and the fight with promoters, and it took me away from who I was,” added Harrison, who battled to ­overcome an addiction to gambling.

“They were tough times, but through that adversity I went to America and fell in love with my wife, Raychel, and had two kids.

“At 34, I was still a little boy and I needed to grow up and stop being the victim, saying, ‘Why did they do this to me?’”

Harrison admitted his own ­situation was put into perspective when he learned of the plight of 11-year-old American schoolgirl Jessie Rees.

He said: “When I lost to Haye I was getting a lot of stick and I was back in America feeling sorry for myself.

“Then I saw the story of a girl with a brain tumour. Other kids were stuck in their beds and she started ­bringing them presents and started building what she called ‘Joy Jars’ for others.

“She got a second tumour and died aged 12, but told her ­parents, ‘You have to keep this going’. I saw her story and it gave me ­perspective. So I bought the T-shirt she was selling with the slogan ‘Never Ever Give Up’. People know I say that and that’s where it came from. And that’s what I want to do.”

Tentative talks about a fight between the pair were held last year, but Harrison could not get fit in time.

Now he fears he might have missed the boat and said: “There’s always a possibility of Joshua. I was talking to Eddie Hearn and Matchroom about fighting on a Sky show they had at the end of last year, but I was injured.

“And because that didn’t happen, Joshua is fighting this month now – so they’ve already kind of moved on to other things.

“We’ll have to see what’s out there. Whether it’s with a Joshua or a Dereck Chisora, I just want to get myself in shape and see where we are.”

Battle of Britons? Harrison says there have been talks about a fight with Anthony Joshua (Image: Action Images)

The dream of becoming heavyweight champion of the world will forever remain unfulfilled for Harrison.

But when he does hang up his gloves, permanently, he will take comfort from the fact that his super-heavyweight gold medal at the Sydney 2000 Olympics was a great legacy to boxing on these shores.

Harrison said: “Obviously, I haven’t won a world title so that’s a failure for me. But what people don’t talk about with the gold medal is that it allowed boxing in England to become a lottery-funded sport.

“If it wasn’t for my gold medal there would be no Amir Khan story, no Anthony Joshua story, James DeGale, David Price, Nicola Adams. Boxing wasn’t funded before then, so the money that poured into the sport as a result of my gold medal has really been a catalyst for boxing to catch up with the rest of the world.”

* Harrison and Legacy Sportswear have launched a T-shirt range with some of the proceeds donated to the Jessie Rees Foundation .